The Internet has revolutionized the way people seek and acquire information. Sources of information continue to multiply, presenting enormous volumes of information; enough to overwhelm even highly sophisticated users. The portal server has emerged to aid the user in selecting, organizing and presenting information useful to, and desired by, the user.
Rapidly developing wireless access to the Internet provides an additional challenge to portal servers in that the portable devices that enable wireless access have unique needs in the way information is presented to their users. The wireless portal server similarly requires features not required in the wired environment.
A significant difference between the wired and wireless environments is the movement of users. In a wired environment, a user's location generally remains constant both during an access session and between sessions. In the wireless arena, due to the portable nature of wireless devices, a user's location can easily change between sessions and often does so during a session. The changing location puts another demand on a portal server if it is furnishing information and services from clients that are location dependent.
A need exists, therefore, for a method for acquiring the location of a wireless portal user and of storing the location information in or by the wireless portal server. Such a method should also provide the location information to appropriate clients of the portal server, e.g., those sources of information and services that could better serve the user with accurate and timely knowledge of the user's location.